MOSCOW, March 06. /ITAR-TASS/. Military exercises of the Air Defense Troops in Russia’s Western Military District have gathered all district ground forces, including air defense formations of the Northern Fleet, at firing range Kapustin Yar outside the southern Russian city of Astrakhan, chief press officer of the Western Military District Colonel Oleg Kochetkov told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

“This is the most large-scale military exercise of the Air Defense Troops in the Western Military District,” he noted.

Around 3,500 specialists of the district’s army air defense systems and more than 1,000 pieces of military and special hardware were participating in the drills, Kochetkov said. Around 30 military trains were used to transfer military hardware from different Russian regions.

“Air defense forces are fulfilling missions to cover troops and the most important infrastructure sites and to rebuff air strikes of an imaginary enemy,” the army chief press officer said. “Combat crews will be operationally coordinated with tactical, technical, engineering and military medical training in the military exercises,” he noted.

He added that combat crews of air defense systems S-300, Buk M1, Osa, Strela-10, air defense gun systems Tunguska, mobile air defense systems Igla would participate in the military exercises.